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From Slickdeals: Acer Desktop (Refurbished): Celeron J1900 Quad Core $159 good deal?

3K views 53 replies 12 participants last post by  Foxbat121 
#1 ·
#4 ·
If you need WMC it is not really that good a deal. I have an older Atom/Ion with Win 7 it just needs an Asrock J1900 ITX and some memory to be comparable. .. The problem is this ACER MB Firmware is locked to Win 8 so you have to either buy Win 8.1 Pro PowerPack and WMC for about $100 or load an older firmware version and do some other things to get Win 7 on it. So I think it is an okay deal but it is debatable.. If it had Win 7 on it they would sell like wildfire at the price.
 
#5 ·
From Slickdeals: Acer Desktop (Refurbished): Celeron J1900 Quad Core $159 goo...

I have bulk license from work so I will be loading the win7 pro on it.

I guess the win8 will not be used.

I've already bought it.
$170 after taxes is really cheap and if it's not good, I can use as a second HTPC down the line so whatever.
 
#6 ·
I have bulk license from work so I will be loading the win7 pro on it.

I guess the win8 will not be used.

I've already bought it.
$170 after taxes is really cheap and if it's not good, I can use as a second HTPC down the line so whatever.
Hope you can get the drivers you need for Win7...
 
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#8 ·
Acer BIOS tends to be proprietary. If it was written for W8 things might not work the same in W7. For $170 you can afford to upgrade to W8Pro if you want to use Windows Media Center (and W7 doesn't work).
 
#10 ·
I know that OEMs include SLIC information in the BIOS for SLP Activation purposes, and that Slic 2.1 (Win7) and Slic 2.2 (Win8) aren't compatible so you'll have trouble trying to use an Acer branded Win7 install that is looking for a Slic 2.1 key in the ACPI tables but AFAIK a standard version of Win 7 should install on a system with Slic 2.2 (and vice versa) provided you have a valid key.

I've also heard about people having trouble downgrading from Win8 to Win7 but most of those problems turned out to be UEFI related and people just didn't know how to install and boot on a UEFI system.

Not saying it's impossible for a manufacturer to lock out a particular OS, but it seems a little odd for Acer to be doing it, especially on normal retail machines. (I could see a few scenarios where it might be useful in an Enterprise)
 
#11 · (Edited)
Not a problem. Links to the Win 7 compatible bios and full suite of Win 7 drivers are already posted in the subject thread.

If you keep Win 8 and upgrade to Pro, non-Xbox extenders won't work well. With 4 Echoes, in my house, I have to stick with Win 7. Like the OP, I have several Win 7 Pro licenses anyway.

Also be aware that this box has no PCIe slots at all. So no internal tuner cards or video cards should you wish up upgrade in the future. So it's a good box if you plan to use an external tuner (or no tuner at all).

You can even score one of these for $140 AR if you use bitcoin at checkout with code BITCOIN, according to one poster.

I may pull the trigger on one of these myself.
 
#12 ·
While the Win7 issues do appear to be UEFI related, after reading that thread, I stand corrected... looks like Acer is trying to lock people into Win8. You learn something new every day :)
 
#13 · (Edited)
Okay.
I guess I will stick with Windows 8.1 but use Pro instead.

I don't actually need the WMC.
I just need the East Asian Language support and the stupid non-pro is USELESS because it cannot display apps in certain languages out of the box (it's a windows-specific issue... there is no such issue with Macs but I can't complain given the price of this computer)
 
#14 · (Edited)
Are you talking about Windows 7? Then the problem does not apply to Windows 8(.1). There is no difference between Win 8 Pro and non-Pro in language support. Just add the language pack you want in Control Panel, move it at the top of the language list, sign out and sign in. That's it. From wiki:


All mentioned editions have the ability to use language packs, enabling multiple user interface languages.[5] (This functionality was previously only available in Windows 7 Ultimate or Enterprise.)
 
#23 ·
I got the computer.

Newegg was in my local area so I got the shipment in a day.

The performance is definitely acceptable and good enough to play all the video files I have thrown at them (ranging from 500MB to 30 GB).
Video output quality is I think okay although the color and brightness seem kind of off.
I had to unload a lot of crap bloatware.
Lots of windows update errors and so on and difficulties with MacDrive reminded me of why I do not use a Windows computer for day-to-day mundane activities.
But XBMC is really great and although I was having some difficulties with the Korean subtitles not showing up correctly, I got around it by just installing the XBMC korean version.

All in all, it's an amazing deal for the computer.
$199 (not counting the $40 MIR) and some accessories like wireless keyboard ($19+ remote ($15) for total net cost of $200 with taxes ... definitely outperforms the combo of Roku 3 ($99), Apple TV ($75-99), 3D Bluray player ($70 at the time), which are the the devices I had connected to the AV/projector.

I'm still tinkering with XBMC with add-ons and shuffling around hard drives so that I could use the 4TB that was formatted in Journaled MACOSX format but other than that, everything is running smoothly.

I hope that one day the HD Audio issue gets worked out.
 
#24 ·
3D Bluray player ($70 at the time)
I am wondering if it really supports Frame Packing 3D (my J1900 board has not arrived yet). Can you test that?
 
#30 ·
If "DTS HD Master Audio 5.1" lights up in your AVR's display, yes, it is working. If only "DTS" lights up, then no, it's not working, your AVR gets only the core DTS.
 
#37 ·
If you're getting DTS, then you're getting 5.1 surround the way a DVD was intended to be heard.

If you're getting DTS MA, then you're getting 7.1 surround the way a Bluray was intended to be heard.

Your AVR should be able to display what kind of signal it's getting.

One format has more detail than the other, but you may not notice the extra detail. If it's important to you, then you'll just have to dig in and learn about it. I can't explain it any better than the links posted so far.
 
#43 · (Edited)
DTS-HD/TrueHD bitstreaming is supported in PC since 2009.

At least you are getting surround sounds in the form of DTS/DD, so not that bad considering the price? You have been warned of this anyway. :)
 
#46 ·
AFAIK in regards to the HD-audio bitstreaming, the j1900 will bitstream all formats in openelec (which makes use of Intel's linux drivers -- I don't think they support the foss drivers anymore, could be wrong)

The windows drivers from intel do not have this enabled to date, but it isn't a hardware limitation

*disclaimer* - I don't own a j1900 board and haven't tested it, but have heard success of others testing this within openelec and un-success of those testing this with windows
 
#48 ·
With no HDCP / PAP support, using directsound will pass your audio through the windows sound mixer and the quality will more than likely be messed up...

WASAPI on the other hand will allow the audio to bypass the windows sound mixer, meaning you will have to use your AVR for volume control...

Since you're going to be using XBMC anyway, why don't you try Openelec or XBMCBuntu as suggested by Dark_Slayer...

Both are way easier to set up than Windows and take a tremendously lesser amount of time to set up... plus no Windows license cost...

Chances are you might just be lucky HD audio bitstreaming will work as none of the restrictions on Windows apply in the Linux arena...
 
#49 ·
Ha yeah many have suggested Openelec and Linux.

Unfortunately Microsoft Windows is critical for some Asian websites and applications my family uses for some content as they are not available or do not work on other platforms (sometimes they don't even work in OSX).

Also I tried Ubuntu about 10 years ago and it left a bad taste in my mouth.
I don't think I'm looking to get into typing command lines for HTPC use.


Oh by the way, those of you who were looking to get in on this deal--- there is a second chance now

http://slickdeals.net/da/mem-i/p69494740/k258/u326392/r-9999
 
#50 ·
Oh by the way, those of you who were looking to get in on this deal--- there is a second chance now

http://slickdeals.net/da/mem-i/p69494740/k258/u326392/r-9999
Thanks for the heads up. Grabbed one this time and just finished setting it up. Downgraded to Win 7 and am running WMC with an InfiniTV 6 ETH. It's working great, a lot better than my old rig, and much quieter. The processor maxes at 10W. Looks very nice in my rack too.

Word of warning, this has no expansion except for a half height mini-PCIe. So as long as you have an external tuner, you'll be fine. I had to unplug the optical drive to add my SSD. You can add more SATA ports with a mini-PCIe card.
 
#52 ·
^^^
BIOS flash only took about 5 minutes, so no big deal in the grand scheme of things.

But I wanted to share some power measurements.

- Sleeping 0.5W
- Full power, running WMC (no video) 14W
- Play video 19W

This thing is so efficient, if I leave it on 24x7, that's only an extra 75 cents per month. Now I can just leave it on and quit fighting sleep/wake issues. It's an awesome little HTPC.

One more little wrinkle though. It does fail DCA for some reason, so I just ran this:
http://rricketts.com/digital-cable-adviser-dca-windows-media-center-registry-override/
 
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